


And The Pain Is Alright

by bobbiejelly



Series: MerAdd PROMPTS Consultation for @bobbiejelly - INPUT REQUESTED ! - SERIES ONE [4]
Category: Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice
Genre: A soulmate AU where you can feel the pain that your soulmate feels, Angst, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28075299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbiejelly/pseuds/bobbiejelly
Summary: In mutual pain, and in mutual comfort, Meredith Grey and Addison Montgomery are soulmates who are destined to meet.
Relationships: Meredith Grey/Addison Montgomery
Series: MerAdd PROMPTS Consultation for @bobbiejelly - INPUT REQUESTED ! - SERIES ONE [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1758358
Comments: 6
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kristin_Aubrie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kristin_Aubrie/gifts), [LarisUSB](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LarisUSB/gifts), [Arissen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arissen/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Hardest of Hearts](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/726252) by Satellitecall1. 
  * Inspired by [MerAdd PROMPTS Consultation for @bobbiejelly - INPUT REQUESTED !](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23741428) by [bobbiejelly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbiejelly/pseuds/bobbiejelly). 



> Part of the MerAdd Prompts Consultation.
> 
> Gifted to those who voted on them :).
> 
> Here is the original synopsis:
> 
> Soulmate AU. Addison keeps feeling these twinges of pain every time she sees Derek’s mistress get hurt. Meredith feels the bruises form on her own skin when Derek’s wife gets punched in the shoulder by her patient. What will it all come down to? Fate? Love? MerAdd. Meddison. Rated T. Probably Rated T….

* * *

**And The Pain Is Alright**

* * *

_In mutual pain, and in mutual comfort, Meredith Grey and Addison Montgomery are soulmates who are destined to meet._

* * *

Meredith Grey knew about soulmates since she was three years old, and she was starting to talk, and she babbled about it.

***

Addison Montgomery never heard about soulmates until she was older. She was nearly six, and she found out rather quickly that her soulmate had a bit of a wild side.

***

Neither one of them expected the other. It was only inevitable that someday they’d meet.

And that their lives would be forever changed from then on…

(For the better?)

***

Meredith Grey heard about the soulmate phenomenon from her mother, Ellis Grey, who, secretly, was still getting bruises from her soulmate in Seattle. 

When Meredith inquired about them, sat upon her mother’s knee, pressing her index finger into them before her mother gently swatted her fingers away, Ellis Grey explained to her then that “these are from my soulmate, Meredith. And someday you may have some, too. When your soulmate is hurt, you feel their pain. And when you get hurt, they feel yours,” as she lifted Meredith up onto her chair to pour her another bowl of cereal.

Meredith nodded, and she understood.

And from then on, she always scanned her mother’s arms for the thin scars that appeared from time to time, which her mother looked at fondly, and she wondered when her own soulmate scars to appear.

(And then one day, they finally did.)

***

Addison Montgomery grew up in a family of soulmate-skeptics. Her mother, Bizzy Forbes, disparaged the concept, though she occasionally had little cuts or scrapes here or there that Addison never noticed her naturally acquiring.

And her father, The Captain Montgomery, always felt that soulmatism was something that only the weak talked about, and he banned the subject from the table altogether.

And therefore, Addison only learned about the soulmate story from her brother, Archer Montgomery, who would whisper it sometimes in the yard far out of earshot of their parents.

Addison found the concept absolutely enticing, as she was always a romantic at heart, and dreamed of meeting her soulmate and marrying them.

She asked Archer if he wanted the same, but her brother just shrugged, and said he’d settle or anyone who cooked him good turkey.

Addison laughed along, and secretly hoped that perhaps her soulmate would cool her good turkey as well.

(Okay, so she was unfortunately wrong about that one, but what can you do?).

***

At the time, Meredith Grey was growing up in Boston, and Addison Montgomery was growing up in mid rural Connecticut.

They were in separate states, had totally separate lives.

And who knows how they would ever find each other?

***

When Meredith Grey was seven years old, she came home from school one day with shooting pain through her legs.

Her soulmate had been through quite an ordeal, so it seemed, and Meredith could feel the scars start to appear from her calves up to her hip bones.

Nothing was broken, luckily, but the bruising and later healing went on for several weeks.

Her mother consoled her, and told her that it’s good her soulmate is getting out in the world.

Determined, Meredith nodded, and went on to climb trees in her backyard to see if she could be just as adventurous.

(She didn’t fall off though, sparing her soulmate some serious headaches).

***

Having hurt her soulmate was one of the reasons Addison Montgomery cried when she fell off her bike at that time.

She bawled and bawled until her brother picked her up, and carried her all the way home.

“Thanks, Archer,” said Addison, sniffling.

“No problem, sis. You better thank your soulmate someday for that, though. You took a hell of a beating,” he offers with a grin.

“You think my soulmate will ever forgive me?” Addison asks him.

“Yeah, I think your soulmate will forgive you. Your soulmate has to forgive you, right?” Offers Archer.

“Thanks, brother, you’re the best!” Addison smiles.

“Tell me that again!” Archer’s chest puffs out in a gloat.

“Never!” Says Archer, as she hops down from the table.

“Someday you will!” Archer teases.

(Addison wonders at his point, if Archer will ever talk to her about his soulmate).

***

The years go by, with Meredith Grey swimming a bit too deep in the river and getting all out of breath.

And Addison Montgomery falling off her bike once or twice more, but never as seriously as the last time.

(The real pain begins for them in High School. Or so they think at least. The teenage years, they’re never easy on anyone).

* * *

*

*

*

*

*

**END OF CHAPTER 1**

* * *

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

* * *

**And The Pain Is Alright 2**

* * *

_In mutual pain, and in mutual comfort, Meredith Grey and Addison Montgomery are soulmates who are destined to meet._

* * *

High School brings forth a whole new set of challenges for Addison Adrianne Forbes Montgomery.

First of all, she's a band geek, and she has to have braces.

So she's sitting there in the dentist's chair all too-tall for her body.

She's feeling so awkward and uncool, and it doesn't help that she's having her teeth drilled into to get these metal wires attached.

"Just a pinch," says the dentist, but of course, that's an under-exaggeration.

"Ow!" says Addison as the braces snap on.

"Sorry, it's better if you don't see it coming," the dentist smiles at her, sheepishly.

"Great…" Addison sighs, and although she hasn't thought about it in a while, Addison wonders abstractly if her soulmate is feeling her toothache as well…

***

Of all the things on her mind at this point, becoming a surgeon is the last one on Meredith's mind at this point.

She's all but decided she doesn't need that kind of pressure in her life, and she's getting by in high school AP classes just because she's been practically force-fed science her entire life.

She spent her childhood at the hospital, and now that she's old enough to walk home from school by herself, she spends the least time possible in her mother's shadow.

Recently she's been experiencing some terrible jaw pain that radiates from the time she felt some sharp pains all around it. She wonders if it has anything to do with her terrible soda-drinking habits, but she doubts it somehow, and then she wonders absently if this is all going back to that soulmate-thing.

See, the thing is, at this point, her soulmate has never appeared to her, yet.

A few of her friends have met theirs by chance.

Her neighbor, Coady for example, met the woman of his dreams when he went away on a football tournament, and he spent the afternoon tapping on his knuckles and watching another girl jump at it before he finally asked her out, and they'd been dating ever since then.

And then, her friend Matthew found his soulmate at school, and it turns out that he'd known him the entire time, they'd just not figured it out yet.

And so Meredith's seen people meet their soulmates before, and it's always been some sort of endless adorable thing that people go on about for hours and hours. So then, why can't she just catch a break with all of this?

Whenever Meredith trips or catches her finger on a piece of paper, she always turns around behind her to see if anyone else is reacting, but it's always the same when she seens everyone is just carrying on about their day.

Nobody notices, and nobody notices her, either.

Meredith Grey is tired of nobody noticing her, so she dyes her own hair bright pink on impulse one day, and the scorch of the bleach takes her breath away.

Her mother still hardly notices.

***

When Archer Montgomery first starts dating girls, Addison asks him what it's like to 'go steady,' with somebody, and Archer is all too pleased to give her the details on all of his conquests.

"Hey, that makes me feel ill, Archie!" Addison rolls her eyes at him.

"Hey, you asked, sis," says Archer, as they take a walk through the park, like they used to.

The park feels smaller now though, much unlike when it was their entire world when they were younger.

"Hey, you remember when you played with the band here?" Archer laughs.

"How could I ever forget the drummer dropping his drumstick on my left foot," Addison laughs alongside him.

"Yeah, that was a funny one, Addie," Archer offers.

"Do you still think my soulmate could feel that?" Addison asks him, unwilling to risk the blank stares if she asks either of their parents the same question.

"Yeah, I think so," says Archer. "Hey, do you ever like, pinch yourself on purpose just to see if your soulmate could pinch back to you?" Archer theorizes.

"No," Addison deadpans. "Why, do you?" Addison asks him, curiously.

"No, it was just a theory," Archer shrugs. "It doesn't matter for me anyway, I got all the ladies, I'm a stud!" Archer brags jokingly.

"Oh yes, making daddy proud," Addison rolls her eyes teasingly at her brother as they continue down the familiar streets.

She laughs off her brother's comments at the moment, but when she's alone, Addison finally gets just curious enough to test out her brother's theory.

And besides of which, she's having a really weird headache tonight, and she really wishes her soulmate wouldn't be into such weird feeling shit.

***

It's about midnight one school night evening when Meredith Grey starts feeling some rather odd sensations.

Sensations like poking and prodding and someone pinching gently.

Meredith tries not to stir too much because she's trying to sleep here (hey! She's got a chemistry exam the next day!), but to no avail, because the random-ass pains keep appearing.

First, it's her thigh, and then it's her elbow, and then, for the weirdest reason, it's her third toe.

Seriously, her third toe on the left side, and at this point, Meredith figures out pretty quickly that this must be some bizarre sort of night for her soulmate because she most certainly isn't experiencing these sensations all on her own from underneath her covers.

Meredith wonders to herself how she can possibly get in touch with this person she's probably never met yet, but she decides that she has to communicate somehow.

And by the soulmate theory, she's learned so far, the way they are connected is theoretically through their pain.

And so Meredith doesn't go overboard like this person obviously is, but she experimentally pokes behind her right ear for a moment before releasing her skin and letting go.

And that's when suddenly everything stops for a moment.

And that's when Meredith finally gets some damn sleep for the evening, and in the morning, she's all so stressed about her chemistry test that she forgets to think about this phenomenon anymore.

***

When Addison feels a sharp little sensation at the back of her neck for a moment after she'd been poking around, she's somehow ecstatic. She's mind-blown that this soulmate-person of hers has somehow already been out there waiting for her, and how she's most certainly gotten the desire to meet them now.

She feels so much more grounded, more hopeful at this point.

She can't wait to tell her brother about the new development that she's all but sure that she's learned.

And she's keen to keep on trying out all of this, but she's been at this for a little while now, and she somehow realizes she maybe might want to be giving her soulmate a break.

So she falls asleep with the newfound knowledge that she's sure for sure to have that special someone someday to talk to 'telepathically,' and she just can't wait to see what her senior and last year of high school has in store for her.

(For them both?).

* * *

*****

*****

***  
**

*****

*****

******* END OF CHAPTER 2**

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

** And The Pain Is Alright 3 **

* * *

Senior year is a whirlwind for Meredith Grey.

First of all, she finally decided to apply for college in the end. In fact, she applied to six colleges because her mother said she’d pay for them all, and she insisted that Meredith apply for Dartmouth even though she didn’t want to actually go there.

But she did in the end, because Dartmouth offered her a great scholarship, and she didn’t have any strong leanings otherwise.

At this point, Meredith has kissed four people and dated five.

She hasn’t gone “all the way,” with any of them yet,it all that could change as the prom was nearing closer. 

By this time her hair has faded back to her usual dirty-blonde, and she’s cut out the pink parts at the tips as a distant memory.

She wonders idly what her soulmate is up to. She hasn’t heard or felt anything in a while, but she figures that generally after leaving grade school that people are less clumsy so they’re less inclined to get all sorts of random injuries.

There’s pain, sure, but a lot of it is angsty and emotional. 

And Meredith hates that at least so far, for this kind of pain, that she has to go through it alone.

***

It’s actually in music class that Addison seems to find her true calling.

Her band teacher calls her a “prodigy,” and hands her some applications for music school.

And Addison loves it, and moves to put the paperwork through.

She doesn’t talk to her brother as much anymore, because he’s off at university and he’s decided that he’s so much cooler than his little sister.

Or, at least, he pretends as such when he calls home to her.

But there’s always those little moments where Archer talks to Addison like he used to, and Addison always cherishes those ones.

“Do you think I’m cut out for music school?” Addison asks Archer one day.

“Only if you want to be a music teacher, or a performer, or a composer or something?” Archer shrugs at her question.

“What do you want to be?” Addison asks him. “What would you do with a B.A in English?” She teases.

“Actually I switched majors, sis,” Archer confessed to her. “I’m hoping to head into Radiology,” Archer shrugs.

“Why the sudden change?” Addison inquires.

“Why not?” Archer laughs.

“I could be a scientist...” Addison muses.

“I bet you’d be one of those weirdo mad scientist types,” Archer rolls his eyes at her.

“Hey!” Addison rolls her eyes back playfully.

“Whatever,” says Archer. “At least mom will be less stressed if she doesn’t think you’re gonna end up being one of those band geeks who plays for cruise ships,” Archer adds.

“Those people are probably happy!” Says Addison.

She applies for pre-medical school anyway.

***

When Meredith books her flights off to Europe, she doesn’t tell Ellis Grey that she’s going. Or, she tries to, but that never goes over well.

“Gap years are for dropouts, Meredith,” her mother would always tell her, hardly ever looking up from the book in front of her nose.

“But it’ll be a great experience!” Meredith tries to insist to her.

“For your social life, maybe. But for your medical career, it’s all crap,” Ellis Grey rolls her eyes again.

“Well, it’s my money, and I’m going!” Meredith puts her foot down.

“You better believe it’ll be your money,” Elli Grey says easily. “I’m not sponsoring that. But when you grow up and go to college like you’d planned to, then I’ll help you out with your textbooks,” Ellis Grey promises.

It’s as close as Meredith ever gets to her saying she’s proud of her.

Hmm, maybe I’ll even meet my soulmate inEurope! Meredith ponders.

But she would never ask her mother his, because she knows the only answer she’ll get is “well maybe you’d have a better shot at meeting your soulmate if you actually started applying to medical school.”

***

When Skippy Gold asks Addison out to the high school prom, she says “yes,” right away because she thinks she’s too ugly for anyone else to ask her.

She still has a lisp from her braces, and she still hasn’t even been kissed yet.

So she’s excited to go with him, and giggle about their band trip under the stage lights of the gym decorated in paper craftsand maybe even experience a little romance.

For a little while, Addison wonders if HE is her soulmate, and so, she decides to test the theory by scratching her arm around him.

But all he asks her is if she has the chicken pox, which of course she promises she doesn’t because she has them when she was five, and so he takes her to prom later that night and she goes with it even though she knows he isn’t her “one and only.”

They get to the end of the evening, and Addison doesn’t realize what’s happening until he starts leaning in.

And when she kisses him back, she decides that it’s nice enough but it’s not the fairy tale magic feeling she’s heard people write songs about.

Maybe if she were prettier she’s had that happen to her.

***

The first time that Meredith ever has sex with someone she doesn’t know if it counts for real because has had no idea on earth what he was doing.

She wanted to “do it,” before she left on her trip so she wouldn’t have to be a virgin anymore, but after it’s happened she feels a bit dirty and wrong about it.

He isn’t her soulmate, but she’s practically given up on that at this point.

Meredith wonders if sex with one's soulmate is more meaningful than this.

She sure hopes so.

***

When Addison feels a pain “down there” she starts crying immediately.

She realizes her soulmate must be experimenting without her, and she can’t help but feel a little bit bummed.

She never wanted to “do it” so fast, and she wonders how on earth her soulmate could possibly have betrayed her like this when she had been planning on waiting.

Addison felt she was maybe a hopeless romantic, but she didn’t call her brother this time about it because she figures that he would only tease her about it.

Addison sits at home alone and wonders what her soulmate must be thinking right now. What she might be feeling right now. 

Would her soulmate be missing her?

Addison wonders...

***

Meredith Grey breaks up with her high school boyfriend soon after those experiences, and she heads off to couch surf and stay in hostels and take the trains. 

She only has a big backpack to her name, and only a small amount of savings. She’s hoping she can figure it out for a few months before she figures out what she wants her next steps to be.

While she travels, Meredith meets a few cute boys, a few cute girls, but all of them don’t mean a whole lot to her.

She’s “done it” with a few of them, with none of them being very memorable.

And each time she wonders if her soulmate is having better luck in that department than she is.

***

Once Addison graduates from high school, she takes a whole other approach on life.

She heads off to “The Big Apple” of New York City with a big name scholarship to Columbia University.

There, she completes a bachelor’s degree before she applies to medical school.

Once she gets in with flying colors, she never looks back.

Her parents are finally proud of her, not that she talks to them much these days. And her brother is finally in a neurology program that he’s incredibly passionate about.

When she calls him one day, that’s when she finally starts to seriously consider medical school as a future career choice.

“You could be a pediatrician?” Archer suggests to her.

“I’m not sure that I like kids that much?” Addison shrugs at him.

“You could be an orthopedist?” Archer tries again.

“I’m not sure if I’m enough of a bro for ortho,” Addison shrugs again.

“You could be a psychiatrist?” Archer tries again.

“Nah, I definitely would be terrible at that one,” says Addison.

She applies to medical school anyway, and at this point Addison decides she might figure out what kind of doctor she’ll be when she gets to it.

***

Meredith decides that she’s going to be a doctor for sure when she’s halfway through Europe and broke and not having half as much fun as she’s expecting to be having.

The partying all the time is getting old, and frankly, she’s lonely and bored of the lazing around all of the time.

So she finally does head to Dartmouth college and gets her first degree done, and then she decides to head back to Europe again, why not?

At this point Meredith has never really dated anyone, though she’s fooled around with plenty of people.

Then one day a cute blonder-than-her blonde girl catches her eye.

“Sadie Harris,” this mischievous girl offers.

“I’m Meredith Grey,” offers Meredith.

And they spend the next forty days getting to know each other as they travel alongside each other, and for once they don’t feel so lonely.

There’s still an ache though, a nagging feeling that something is... missing.

Sadie is all wild and daring, and Meredith is surprised that for once she’s not always the one pushing for something more exciting.

She’s content at this point, or at least, she would have been had she not found Sadie sleeping with someone else behind her back on her own bed in their shared bedroom in Amsterdam.

“I thought I was more to you,” Meredith tears up at Sadie as she picks up her clothes off the floor and packs them away again.

“We were never exclusive,” says Sadie. “We had never promised to be commuted,” she reasons.

“But I was!” Says Meredith, still in tears about Sadie’s actions.

“But we never had any rules,” offers Sadie.

“But-“ says Meredith.

“But I don’t want any rules, and I didn’t want to make you have any either. We’re young, and we already know that we’re not each other’s soulmates. We like each other enough, but we were never meant to end up together forever,” Sadie offers.

“I though you were always going to be the “die” to my “death” Meredith sobs at her quietly.

“You’ll thank me for this one day, death,” Sadie offers her one last kiss on the cheek before she slinks away from her.

(It takes Meredith many, many, many years for her to finally believe her).

***

As Addison progresses through medical school, she excels at everything the program has to offer her.

She’s focused, she’s sharp, and she hardly ever breaks down.

Addison has friends now. She has her friends Naomi and Saavy and Weiss and Sam. They all hang out together sometimes, comparing notes and study tips, and then they all just have little parties together.

It’s cozy, just the four of them, until it changes when Saavy and Weiss start to spend more and more time together exclusively.

“Do you think they’re seeing each other?” Addison gossips at one point to Naomi.

“They could be?!” Naomi giggles with her.

“Do you think they could be soulmates?” Addison asks her.

“Yeah, maybe!” Naomi says, and they decide that they’re going to test out their theory.

So the next time they’re all drinking together, Naomi pinches Saavy’s wrist and watches Weiss jump at it. And Addison does the same to Weiss and watches Saavy jump at it.

“Congratulations!” Addison and Naomi both offer their friends.

And they say “thank you,” and they tell them about how romantic it is.

And jokingly, Addison pinches Sam’s wrist to see if his soulmate is nearby.

“Nice truc Addison, but I can’t imagine my soulmate is here already,” says Sam.

But what surprises them above all else is that Naomi jumps at the contact.

“Wait, so that again!?” Says Naomi as she pinches her own wrist and watches Sam jump at it.

“Whoa, you’re both soulmates too!” Saavy and Weiss can’t help but exclaim.

And it’s a beautiful love story and the beginning of a happily ever after for them.

And as much as Addison is overjoyed for her friends, she can’t help but feel a little bit sad that her own soulmate has yet to meet her.

* * *

*

*

*

*

*

***** **END OF CHAPTER 3**

* * *

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [MerAdd PROMPTS Consultation for @bobbiejelly - INPUT REQUESTED !](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23741428) by [bobbiejelly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbiejelly/pseuds/bobbiejelly)




End file.
